An Old-Fashioned Taste of Christmas

For the 56 members of the Whittier College Choir, Christmas is not truly old-fashioned unless it comes with corsets and candlelight and a boar’s head on a plate.

Those are the ingredients of the annual Christmas Madrigal Feaste: a salute to the music, food and atmosphere of Elizabethan England.

The fund-raising feast, which transports diners across the Atlantic and back 400 years, features costumed waiters who sing through supper.

“Each course has its own carol, besides the other songs,” said Stephen Gothold, Whittier College choral director and founder of the 12-year-old Madrigal Feaste.

“For instance, we bring out a boar’s head on a platter with the main coarse and sing the Boar’s Head Carol, which is truly Elizabethan. We don’t eat the boar’s head, though. By the end of the week, you wouldn’t want to eat the one we’ve been using.”

Instead of boar’s head, guests will be served a more palatable chicken Dijon. And no figgy pudding here. Gothold said the choir tried serving the traditional dessert one year, but nobody ate it.

Some of the recipes date back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Gothold said. The hot fruit punch flavored with rum was popular more than 400 years ago, when it was called wassail, and comes with another ancient song: the Gloucestershire Wassail.

And while diners are picking over the May salat--a “peculiar mix of greens and vegetables,” according to Gothold--their waiters will entertain with a mix of old and new songs.

“Much of the evening is dedicated to trios and quartets serenading individual tables,” Gothold said.

After dinner, the singers become actors long enough to present a “quasi-Elizabethan spoof” on the fairy tale “Rapunzel.”

The evening winds down with the chorus surrounding the tables for the last few songs and a final sing-along of “Silent Night.”

Proceeds from the Madrigal Feaste will help cover expenses for the Whittier College Choir’s annual spring tour, this year to Mexico City and Guatemala.

Tickets are $27.50 for adults and $20 for students and children. The feast will be at 6:30 p.m. today in the Ettinger Faculty Center at Whittier College, 13507 Earlham Drive, Whittier.

For ticket information, call (310) 907-4237.